While Hannah was undergoing at Ramah the discipline which wrought in her such noble qualities, there dwelt in Shiloh one of kindred spirit, who was called to endure even severer tests, inasmuch as that which should have constituted her happiness, was evermore the bitterest ingredient in her cup; what might have been her purest joys became her greatest griefs.  She was a wife, but only in name.  Of the serenity and bliss which attend on true wedded love she was deprived.  Her bridal pillow was early planted with thorns, which henceforth forbade all peace.  She was a mother, but her children were to be partakers of their father’s shame, disgraced, and doomed to early death or lives of wickedness and woe.  She seemingly enjoyed abundant privileges, but her trials as a child of God were deeper than all others.  She dwelt on sacred ground, but alas! herein lay the secret of her sorrow.  Had her home been among the thousands in the outer camps, it had not been so sadly desecrated.  Her husband was the High Priest’s son, and daily performed the priest’s duty among holy things.  Had he been a humble member of Dan or Naphtali, his crimes had not been so heinous.  She lived under the shadow of the tabernacle; had her abode been farther from the sacred enclosure, she had not been daily witness to the heaven-daring deeds which made men abhor the offering of the Lord, and called for vengeance on her nearest and dearest.  Her food was constantly supplied from the sacred offerings; had it been procured in ordinary ways, she had not been a partaker with those who committed sacrilege.

No trifling vexations, no light sorrows were hers; and as might be expected, her virtues bore their proportion to the purifying process to which she was subjected.  Disappointed in her earthly hopes, she clung to her God, and fastened her expectations on Him.  Humiliated in her human relations, she aspired to nothing henceforth but His honor and glory.  Wounded in heart, her wealth of love despised, lonely, deserted, she sought in Him the portion of her soul, and her lacerated affections found repose and satisfaction, without the fear of change in His unchanging love.

It is often so ordered in the Providence of God, that those who have borne the yoke in their youth, live to see days of comparative quietude and exemption from trouble.  Hannah, after the birth of Samuel, appears to have passed the remainder of her life in peace and prosperity.  But the nameless woman whose memorial we record had no respite.  Her life was a life of endurance, and she was cut off in the midst of her days by a most fearful and agonizing stroke.